Modern Screen (Dec 1954 - Dec 1955)

TV TALK eggs--fra good for your hair/ See how exciting this new luxury lather makes your, hair! Glowing clean, silky ... so manageable! That's the magic touch of Fresh Whole Egg! Conditions any hair. Try it! 29<t, 59$, $1. Sid Caesar's new wife . . . Steve Allen acts, too . . „ the latest word on Arthur Godfrey Sid Caesar has known for months that he might use Nanette Fabray on his show every week. He didn't tell anyone — even denied it vehemently — because he didn't want anyone to say that Nanette wasn't as good as Imogene Coca. He figured if he waited for a while before he had another "wife" on the show that people might forget just a little how wonderful Imogene used to be in the part. They say, by the way, that Sid makes a lot of decisions on the advice of his psychiatrist. The doctor doesn't sit down and plan the shows with Sid, of course, but it was apparently he who encouraged Sid to produce his own program. Here's hoping that what's good for the psyche is good for the ratings ! . . . Nanette is thrilled with her new job. She hasn't had a good part on Broadway for too long. The little pertnosed redhead is still seen around with her ex-husband, who now works for Max Liebman, who used to be Sid's boss ! . . . Sheldon Reynolds, who produces Foreign Intrigue in Europe, is just as glamorous-looking as any of the actors who play in it. Really more so. He's kind of a cross between Frank Sinatra and Louis Jourdan! Beat that! . . . Mike Wallace is doing very well playing the romantic lead in Reclining Figure, the play that Arlene Francis's husband, Martin Gabel, produced. You should have seen Mike's wife, Buffie Cobb, opening night. She sat in the front row and never took her eyes off Mike when he was on stage. Steve Allen was offered the part, you know, but Steve is much too busy these days to do anything extra. He has been asked to go back on What's My Line? but he won't even do that. It takes hardly any time at all, but Steve figures he can't spare even another two or three hours a week away from home. His advisers also figure he doesn't need What's My Line? any more. When he was on it before, it was his only network show. Now that he's on the network so often, he can do without the panel. He doesn't need the money. That's for sure ! People who didn't see him in his one stage appearance two years ago (there aren't many who did; it lasted only three or four nights!) don't realize that Steve is one of the better young actors around these days . . . You'd hardly recognize Georgeanne Johnson in Reclining Figure. Her part is not at all like her Marge Weskit on Mr. Peepers . . . Now it's Besty Palmer whose acting style is reminiscent of Kim Stanley's — that same smacking of the lips. Notice it next time . . . Speaking of Kim Stanley, she is not at all at ease when she has to appear on an ad-lib television show Kim needs a script. The critics said that she didn't get enough of one in Traveling Lady, the Horton Foote play that made her a star before its early closing. But Horton can still go to other authors' plays and enjoy them. Many writers who've been panned are likely to sulk. Not Horton. He is convinced that he. too, will write a hit. In the meantime, he and his family are living quite well on his television money . . . They say that Jayne Meadows, being older than Audrey, has a lot of influence over her little sister. Yet Audrey's career is in much better shape than Jayne's. When Jayne recently did get a chance to do something besides panel-sitting on I've Got A Secret, she muffed it. She was well into rehearsals for a play that might have revived her career, but then she got sick. It wasn't pneumonia as the newspapers said, however; it was mostly disappointment that her part wasn't bigger. Yet Jayne, who made her acting start on Broadway, is dying to do more than guess secrets . . . People who have met Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows and the Meadows' parents say that the girls' father, a minister, is very much like Steve — really quiet. Their mother, on the other hand, is very chatty, just like Jayne . . . The latest rumor on Arthur Godfrey is that CBS doesn't much care if he quits. At one time they would almost have gone bankrupt if he had left. But now that the sponsors are screaming to get on the air, CBS figures it could easily sell his time . . . Lee Grant has been taking intensive speech lessons so that she can lose her New York accent and get to play more parts. Expect to see her more and more . . . Don't let Person To Person. ioo\ you. Usually, days before the show, Ed Murrow has lunch with the people who are going to be interviewed — those who live in and near New York anyway. He and an Eva Marie Saint of Waterfront and her husband, Jeffrey Hayden, came to a gala preem. Martha Raye and Ed Begley prefer Connecticut living, rarely tog out for formal appearances.